


Brain Damage

by daddydreadful



Series: Penny Grinning Soul [3]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bargaining, Bill Skarsgard Form, Demon/Human Relationships, Dubious Consent, F/M, Gen, Human Pennywise (IT), Mind Games, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Female Character, Seduction, Tags May Change, Tentacles, Trickster Pennywise, Warnings May Change, clown sex, trippy sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 08:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13994385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daddydreadful/pseuds/daddydreadful
Summary: ***Sequel to "Some Kind Of Monster"***Pennywise is a bastard.  A world-altering, life-stealing bastard.  You, on the other hand, are an idiot.  Oh, and a monster, too--at least that's what you try to tell yourself when the overwhelming need to justify your decisions has grown too big to ignore.  Decisions like luring people to their deaths for a little action with the nasty clown himself, a deal *you* came up with.  But you should have known that Pennywise wouldn't make it easy for you (as if "easy" here wasn't already a misnomer).  So when your world turns upside down (literally), and you are forced to make a horrible choice (or several), you can keep trying to rationalize your actions away...Or maybe you can stand up to your tormentor, trick him, even.  Because surely a creature from the lowest depths of The Unimaginable has a weakness.





	Brain Damage

“What scares you?”

You set your coffee cup down.  You know what your answer is, but dare you say it aloud?  And to him?

“Um…” you murmur, struggling.  “Ah…”  _ Fuck it. _  “Being alone,” you say finally.  You look up at him then, curious of how he will react, but he only nods in understanding.  It wasn't a strange answer anyways. In fact, wasn't it the only one?

“Well,” he replies, “you're not alone now.”

He smiles at you, and you can't help the rush of warmth and the echoing smile that escapes your lips.  He actually seems… nice. But then you blink, and his face seems to change, morphing into the one that had stared at you, eyes black and haunting, from your computer screen at the library.  You bite your lip, hoping you look coy and not calculating.  _ Don't lose focus _ , you think to yourself.  You have to be cautious. This man was more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing--he was a shark.

You glance down at your coffee cup.  It's empty, and you've already had two.  You take a deep breath and keep it there between your teeth.   _ It's time. _

“I have to go,” you say softly.  “Thank you for the coffee.” Reluctantly, you rise from your seat, your eyes never leaving his.  He watches you silently, but when you finally swing your bag over your shoulder and make to leave, he grabs your hand.

“Where are you going?” he asks, his voice somewhere between a demand for an answer and a flirt.  If you hadn't known any better, his voice and his touch might have thrilled you.

“My place,” is your reply.  “It's not far from here.”

His thumb sweeps lightly over your hand.  “And you'll be… alone?”

A rush of warmth.  A smile.  _ Smooth _ , you think approvingly.  What an upgrade over high school boys.  You tilt your chin down, flashing him that look, the one that never fails.  “Well… I don't have to be…”

You step away then, but he follows, his hand still holding yours.

Unsurprisingly, you don’t get very far.

Once you round the corner, he is on you, grabbing your face, taking your lips, pushing you against the wall.  His kiss is stirring and completely untroubled, and for a moment you are content to sink into it and dream. You think of you and him, but a better you, a better him; people who were prosaically average, even, and not so shamefully fucked up.  The you in another lifetime who was still bright-eyed and hopeful and  _ whole _ .

But no matter how hard you think, the only reality you can feel is this one, so you pull away and take his hand again.  “This way,” you say breathlessly.

Once in your apartment, you go back to the typical order of things, offering him some wine to slow your jaunt into the night.  You flirt, you make out a little more, but when he finally collapses onto your bed, he does it alone. You push at his shoulder a few times, but he doesn’t move.   Air whistles out of you as you finally release the breath you feel like you have been holding since leaving the cafe. Success.

“I can’t believe it,” you say wryly to the air, idly turning the stem of his empty wine glass between your thumb and forefinger.   Maybe the dreams you had as a child of becoming a super spy weren't so silly after all.  _ See, Mom?  I  _ am _ good at something. _

But thinking about your mom seems to sharpen things (your vision, your thoughts), so you slide her out of your mind with a shake of the head.   _ Don’t lose focus _ , you remind yourself.  It was time to get to work.

Ten minutes later… you’re sweating.  “ _ Fuck _ ,” you mutter.  This is exhausting.  Is this really what you've been reduced to, hauling an unconscious, large, and rather heavy man into a wheelbarrow and down the street of a dark alley, your destination the only thing on your mind?  You pause your pushing for a moment, wiping your brow with the back of your hand. This. Is. Ridiculous. And yet… here you are.

Pennywise had given you forty-eight hours.  Forty-eight hours to find a target, woo them, and somehow get them to the sewers yourself.  Even though it was likely that he could transport the two of you there in an instant, Pennywise... was a fucking dick.  If he was going to give you something, he was going to make you work for it. He’s probably here now, you think suddenly, hiding in the shadows, mouth stretched wide in his drool-covered smile, the one you seemed to see whether dreaming or awake, as if it was burned into the backs of your eyelids.  You can almost hear his laughter in your ears… feel his hands grabbing at you from the dark…

You sigh again.  Next time you should just do what you did with Tucker: lure your target to the sewers while he’s actually  _ conscious _ , no matter how silly or difficult it might be.  Then you wouldn't have to haul his heavy ass halfway across Derry under the cover of nightfall, stumbling and cursing and making all sorts of noise as if you were a fledgling serial killer with your first kill.  Which… it wasn't your first kill.  _ Tucker… _ . Your eyes whip around the alley again, but no missing posters step away from the cover of night to consume your vision--except it didn’t matter.  Tucker’s missing poster could occupy the whole of your mind at any time, as easily (and painfully) as if Pennywise himself had conjured it out of the air before you, telephone pole and all, and smacked you in the face with it, scream-laughing: “Remember what you did!  Remember. What. You. Did!”

You stand there, perfectly silent, perfectly still, remembering.

Then you shrug.

With a grunt you start pushing the wheelbarrow again, your focus once again on what lay before you, not behind.  It was the closest you could come to clearing your mind, a skill you were in desperate need of improving upon given your current situation.  Clearing your mind completely just wasn’t possible, no matter how hard you tried. Thoughts, memories, emotions--one or more of those pesky human qualifiers could sneak past your grip at any moment, providing all sorts of ammo for a devilish, mind-reading clown.  So how exactly were you supposed to protect yourself from a creature that could open your head up as easily as if he was shucking an oyster? It took you awhile to figure it out, but figure it out, you did:  _ Look forward _ .  That simple phrase was the answer.  Leave the past in the past and the future where it is--you would catch up to it eventually.  Reach out if you had to, but really, the only thing you needed to do was to face it, turning towards it instead of away.  Even if it was a future that was unbelievable, or ridiculous.

Like finally saving up enough money to buy a new car.  Hauling people to their deaths would be so much easier if you had a car.

A feeling rises within you then, a damning mess of panic and dismay that seems to fill your lungs like water, making it impossible to breathe.  How could you be this flippant? This heartless? You were leading people to their deaths whether they deserved it or not, all for a few short moments of meaningless bliss, something that the rest of the world didn’t have to do--wouldn’t  _ dare  _ do--even if their own lives were at stake.  How  _ could _ you?

But... it was a silly question.  You  _ knew _ why.

“Monster…” you whisper, willing the word--the _ acquiescence _ \--to leave you, to tear through the air, spreading like a ripple to reach every ear that was listening, and to consume those that weren’t.  Just like Pennywise’s smile, his touch; just like Tucker’s missing poster, the word “monster” would rear up inside your mind at any moment, stopping whatever you were doing or thinking of with the simple strength of its gaze.  It was a declaration that was unavoidable, yet still you had tried to hide from it at first, like a fool. A hapless, hopeless, fool.

But then,  _ lucky you _ , the devil had come along (a lover of fools from the very beginning), and he had helped spur your awareness into being.  Well, to be fair, “helped” was too soft a word; it was more like awareness was  _ thrust upon _ you, but you couldn’t deny how clearer things were afterwards, as if the dust of the world had been blown away, the various truths now standing out in sharp relief.

“We smell our own.”  That was one, a truth.  An easy one.

“Monsters are real and sometimes they win,” was another.  But what truth, what  _ guidepost _ , came after this one?

I _ won _ , you think.  Sure, officially, you had  _ lost _ Pennywise’s little game.  He knew you all along, yet  _ still  _ you had bet against him.  Like a fool. And your loss was spectacular.  (Of course it was; Pennywise was  _ sure  _ to make it so.)  It wasn’t until later--when you were certain that the only presence in your mind and surroundings was your own--did you realize that actually... you  _ hadn’ _ t lost.  You  _ knew  _ yourself now, completely.  When the urge to justify your actions rose in your mind or heart like a witch hell-bent on claiming her side of the deal, no longer did you need to appease her.  Winners didn’t have to appease  _ anyone _ .  They didn’t even have to think.  They just  _ did _ .

So after all of your trials and revelations... what came next?

_ What _ I _ can claim _ , you think firmly.   _ My reward.   _ Gripping the handles of the wheelbarrow again, you press forward, your thoughts once more trained on your destination, the only thing in your mind.

****

“All right, you bastard, I’m here.”

When the only reply to your greeting is the squeak and scurrying feet of a rat running along the floorboards between your shoes, you frown in annoyance and look around again.  The Neibolt House was exactly like you remembered it: dark, dirty, depressing,  _ dangerous _ —except twenty minutes had passed since you arrived, and nothing, not even a bird or stray piece of furniture, had jumped out at you, screaming or morphing into something hideous.  After a second pass around the house, you lean against the doorframe to the kitchen, a (5th? 7th?) sigh hovering around your lips, threatening to break free. Where was he?

“Here, asshole clown,” you say under your breath, your voice sing-song, mocking.  “Dinnertime…. Come and get it… I am  _ not  _ going down into the sewer!”

Something like a long, low groan sounds behind you, and you whip around.  It’s the  _ man _ , his arms twitching against his ties and his head bobbing lightly on his neck as he stirred.   _ Oh, fuck…  _ you think, your heart plummeting.  You don’t want him to recognize you.  In all your ponderings of this day, you hadn’t put much thought into the little moments between your shadow work and the perverse fulfillment of your desires, when you had to look upon the face of your victim and see him looking back at you.  After a tense moment of uncertainty—with you shifting nervously on your feet as you wrestled with the urge to flee—you  _ do _ leave, but only to dash into the kitchen, hiding yourself from the man’s view.  His groaning intensifies, then it stops. You hear him murmur a question into his gag.  Then there is a loud clanging sound and more muffled curses and groans, and you could tell: the man had tipped the wheelbarrow forward and fallen to the floor.  Even though you’re sure he can’t get out of his bonds himself, you slowly back further and further into the kitchen until you’re finally stopped by something solid, the wall behind you.

Or…  _ not _ the wall.

Before you can turn around, something wraps itself around your throat and you find yourself being propelled forward, your scream of surprise lost somewhere in the depths of your chest.  Right before you hit the wall face-first, the thing holding your neck smoothly flips you around in its grip, causing your back to slam into the wood instead. Still, the impact hurts… but then it doesn’t.  It  _ sings _ .

_ Pennywise _ .

He’s facing you, standing by the fridge on the other side of the kitchen—that drooling smile, that towering frame—but even after all you’ve seen, you still gasp as your eyes fall on his right limb--a “limb” because what is protruding from his billowy sleeve this time is certainly  _ not _ a human arm.  It’s a tentacle, pale green and as smooth and thick as a boa constrictor and likely just as powerful, able to snap a human’s neck in half with a flick.

...Which you should probably be worried about given that the end of the tentacle is what is wrapped around  _ your _ neck.

You should have been scared, and it was there, the fear that he could kill you (bite the tendons from your neck; slice through your abdomen with his claws, staining the floor with your blood and the walls with viscera), but that feeling was just an echo compared to the excitement flooding your body, the desire to feel those claws rake against you skin but only  _ just  _ enough.

So you do something insane and not at all clever: you smile back at him.  “We really need to stop meeting this way,” you gasp out, somehow managing to convey a tone of playful wryness despite his hold around your throat.  “Though, I’m not necessarily saying you should stop choking me—”

With a sudden, hard yank, he’s pulling you towards him, the toes of your shoes skimming the floor so quickly you imagine them leaving scorch marks—but then you are inches from his face and being consumed by the twin flames of his eyes.  He’s not smiling anymore, and you can’t help but notice how severe this makes him look, how dangerous. His grip around your neck tightens, loosens, and tightens again, and as your competing emotions of longing and fear rise and fall within you like audio levels, you realize what he is doing: tuning your body like he would an instrument, creating the sound that he, and only he, wants to hear.

Or, rather, the  _ flavor _ he wants to  _ taste _ .

His mouth opens, drool sliding down his chin and onto his ruff, and you gulp as you see his teeth looking longer and more pointed than normal.  You glimpse his tongue, too, but then you see more of it as it extends past his mouth like a tentacle of its own, licking the side of your face from jaw-to-hairline.  A shudder; a rush of something: fear, fire, you can’t tell the difference anymore, but whatever it is, it’s as intoxicating as it is excruciating, and you squirm in his grasp with a loud whimper.   _ Oh please _ , you think, your desperation rising.   _ Please, please, touch me— _

You feel it then, the slithering of a tentacle, or  _ tentacles _ , first up one leg, then up the other, and you don’t know where on his body they are coming from, but you find that you couldn’t care less.  You had worn a skirt today in the hopes that this would happen, and as the tentacles inch higher and higher up your legs, the sigh that leaves your lips this time is the opposite of childish irritation.  He’s looking at you with a smirk in his eyes, watching every betraying sound or twitch your body makes, but it’s not like you’re trying to hide them anymore…  _ Especially _ when you feel the tentacles skim over your underwear, brushing you with the soft, purposeful touch of a lover—except...

_ He isn’t one _ , you remind yourself.  Nor is he remotely human—but you don’t care.  You don’t fucking care.

So when a wordless voice sounds from the other room and Pennywise stops, the first thing you feel is dismay, and not because reality was back to commandeer your senses.  The clown’s head swivels to look towards the living room, but almost immediately, his gaze flicks back to trap yours again, eyes swirling with cruel amusement.  _ Of course _ .  All this time, Pennywise had known that the man was there, forced to listen to you shudder and moan while  _ he _ laid there cold, confused, and afraid.   _ Bastard _ , you think, the blush on your cheeks deepening.  Apparently satisfied with his little ruse, Pennywise’s sneer finally leaves you, and suddenly, the tentacle around your neck is a silky gloved hand, and that hand is releasing you, letting you fall to the floor in a pathetic heap.  When you sit up, the clown is gone.

But he hasn’t gone far.  The moment you hear a loud gasp and a chorus of addled curses, you’re on your feet, but a headlong dash into the living room is short-lived when you skid to a stop at what you see.  There’s Pennywise, crouched upon the floor, one hand against the ground and the other palming his knee, but before him is the man—your date, your  _ victim _ —bound, gagged, and staring up at you, the terrified look in his eyes a damnation but the slow look of recognition even worse.

It’s Pennywise who breaks the silence.  “A rapissst,” he remarks calmly (though the uptick at the corner of his mouth betrays his continuing sick glee).  You try to calm yourself, to go back to not thinking, to feeling coolly justified, but the shame stays there in your throat, awkward and unpleasant like a piece of gristle you chew but can’t quite swallow.  You shuffle your feet. You look at everything in the room--everything, until there is nothing left to see but a pair of wide wondering eyes.

So you choose to look at the yellow ones.  “So? Are you hungry or not?” You meant it to sound flippant; rude, even, but unsurprisingly, your voice barely rises above the groans and creaks of the house.  Now the clown’s smile is stretching across his face in a full-blown jeer, and you feel like a kid again, surrounded by a crowd of jeers, the bullies, the  _ monsters _ , from your past.  Instinctively, you make a fist behind your back, nails stabbing bloody crescent marks into your palm.  You force yourself to focus on the little twinges of pain until the tension rising ever higher in your chest stops.  Stops and doesn't go away, but it's enough to make you press your lips together and raise your chin, your glare defiant.   _ How dare you mock me _ , you seethe.   _ You, of all horrible, evil things _ —

But your thoughts shut off promptly as Pennywise stands.  Now you can’t help but notice his wide, flaring nose and the steady line of drool sliding down his chin.  He looks at your offering, the hunger in his eyes so strong and terrifying the man is sure to go mad—

But then the clown steps right over him and approaches...  _ you _ .

Your feet leave the floor.  Your back hits the wall. Hands slip under your ass, lifting your hips up, and your lips open wide in surprise—until they’re opening for something else.

You had only been kissed an hour ago, but already the memory of that kiss was leaving you, making room, just like your mouth was, for another’s tongue, another’s lips.  The kiss is furious, confounding. Sometimes you feel a normal human tongue and the soft nips of human teeth, but other times you feel something large and sinuous—thrusting so far into your mouth you think you might gag—and bites that pierce your lips like needles.  The hands on your body are overwhelming, too, grasping and dragging across your skin, the touch so possessive and full of need you actually feel protected; idolized, even, the way a rarefied thing must feel after finally being found by its seeker. And when a hand finds your hair and the lips find your neck, you open your eyes…

...and look straight into  _ another _ pair of eyes, the ones currently staring at you from their owner’s place on the floor in the middle of the room.  Your breath stops again but for the wrong reasons this time, and you try pushing Pennywise away and fail. “Wait,” you whisper between gasps, “wait, not here.  Someplace… someplace else…”

Pennywise’s response is to release you from the wall and turn you around.  Hands come down hard on your shoulders and back, forcing your torso down until you’re practically eye level with the man (your victim, your  _ part of the deal _ ), and when those same hands grab your upper arms, backing you up until nothing, not even air separated your eagerness from his, you utter a strangled sob.

Pennywise was going to take you right in front of the man whose life  _ you _ had taken, deeming it less than your own, to do with however you pleased.

There’s a tongue sliding down your bare back.  Hands on your hips, nails digging in. Your clothes are skewed; you’re practically flashing the man, but that is hardly the worst of it.  There are tentacles all over you, skimming over your stomach, your thighs; gliding behind your neck to pull your hair and rear your head back; swirling around your breasts; prying open your mouth to play with your tongue; moving between your legs to thrust themselves inside--and at your back Pennywise is growling, snuffling like an animal; and you are gasping, trying, and failing, to stifle your moans.  And you can’t even  _ begin _ to imagine how you must look to the man (your captive, your fucking  _ sacrifice _ ) who isn’t or  _ can’t _ look away himself.  You feel a strain start to build in your depths, and it's as familiar as it is  _ terrible _ \--every glorious moment you've ever wanted, but the moments are fleeting, the feelings untamable.  Your pleasure, it was like a wild thing come gently to your hand, but one who never stayed, no matter what you did.

Just like Pennywise himself.

And when you find your release, your eyes finally slam themselves closed and you're  _ free _ \--free from the man’s harrowing gaze; free from your spiraling thoughts; free from the restraints of the world, the tethers tying you down with their rules, their unyielding morality.  What did the rest of the world know about freedom? Did animals know it? Plants?

What did humans know about flying?

_ Nothing _ , you think fiercely.  Nothing at all.

And yet it was the  _ world  _ that was there to catch you when you finally came down, plummeting from the sky with wings burned from the sun.

You hear a noise, a soft whimpering, and it jars you, eyes snapping open to once again fall on the man before you.  He's twitching uncomfortably, the outline against the front of his pants betraying the arousal he had likely tried to fight, and you think of how terrible he must feel, the walk towards his death agonizingly long and full of shame.  It was just like your walk, you realize abruptly. For what else could come from dancing with the devil but a tainted life and a final, regretful death?

You fall to the floor then, body trembling and legs useless, and the clown was certainly not going to continue to hold you up.   _ Or  _ even look at you, it seems--with one swift movement his is past you, stepping clear over your body like he had done earlier with the man.  And he’s changing into something, no doubt one of the man’s greatest fears, but you don’t stay to see what it is. You half-crawl, half-stumble towards the front door, your heart empty except for the hope that you won’t hear the man scream.  But you’re not fast enough, and as you tumble through the door and down the steps, the man’s screams and Pennywise’s growls follow you, latching onto your back like an invisible demon who was bound there forever, with nothing to do but whisper woe in your ear.  Even the smell of death finds you, and you pitch forward onto the grass, your face a mess of vomit and tears. You want to scream, and inside your head you are, but it’s a hateful scream directed solely towards yourself.  _ “LOOK WHAT YOU DID! _ ” the voice cries. _  “LOOK WHAT YOU DID!  YOU MURDERER!” _  But he was a rapist, you sob to yourself.  A rapist who had barely served the penance he was due.  Except this doesn’t satisfy the voice, and the damning words continue to ring in your head, calling you a murderer; an evil, worthless thing.

“Are you alright?”

You are so startled by the new voice, you try to leap to your feet and fail, crashing back down upon the grass with a curse.  Breathing heavily, you prop yourself up on your arms and look up. Your jaw drops.

_ It’s the girl from Jimmy’s memory. _  The one with the red ribbon in her hair, whose green eyes had looked so concerned at Jimmy’s bleeding, broken state, but who had ultimately succumbed to the influence of her peers and left without a word.  It’s strange seeing her in the real world, your befuddled mind certain that you have never met before but knowing her all the same. When you don’t say anything, the worry on her face deepens, and you hustle to ease the silence.  “I’m… I’m good. I’m fine.”

“You look sick,” she says.

“I’m not,” you lie… but then your memory flares and you find your strength, jumping to your feet with a gasp.  You grab her hand and immediately start walking, tugging her forcefully from the yard. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” you scream at her hysterically.  “DON’T EVER COME NEAR THIS HOUSE!  _ EVER _ !”

“I know,” she huffs and you blink down at her in surprise.  “It’s just, you looked like you needed some help.”

You drop her hand then, feeling both guilty and relieved now that you are several blocks away.  “Oh--sorry,” you hurry to say. “It’s just, that house is a bad place. You want to stay away from it.”

Her reply is just a simple nod of agreement.  She swings her backpack around, zips it open, and pulls out a bag of orange slices.  “I have these, if you want some. My teacher says they are full of Vitamin C. It’s good for colds.”

She hands you the bag and even though eating is the last thing you’d like to do at the moment, you take out a slice and bite into it.  Your stomach recoils but you force it to calm down. “Thanks,” you say between bites. “What’s your name?”

“Madeline.  What’s yours.”

“[Y/N].”  Taking out another orange slice, you look around the empty street.  “Why aren’t you at summer camp? I thought pretty much everyone here was.”

“My parents can’t afford it,” she says with a shrug, and you quickly swallow past a too-large piece of orange so you can speak.  “Oh, sorry,” you say again. You think hard for a moment, feeling a strong urge to comfort her even though she didn’t seem sad. “You’re not really missing much.  It’s hot and sticky, the cabins are crap, and there are bugs  _ everywhere-- _ ”

“I like bugs,” she says brightly and you smile.  Maybe you are starting to see why Jimmy likes her so much.

“But… it's okay,” Madeline continues, though her voice is more solemn now.  “I don't mind staying home for the summer.”

She reaches up to brush her hair from her eyes and you think you see it then, a series of darkened marks on her upper arm, wound around and around like faded Sharpie marks… or  _ fingerprints _ .  Your breath seems to quiet so much you think you can hear the blood rushing in your ears, but then a shock of anger rocks your chest.  It surges down every limb, making you feel powerful, ready to act. You think of the last time you had felt this way and the person who had caused it:  _ Spencer Jaxson _ .

And you remember what you did  with that anger… and what you could do  _ now _ .

Just as you’re opening your mouth to speak, there is a searing blast of thunder overhead.  You cover your ears with a startled yell…

...but then a large  _ crack  _ splits the ground beneath your feet.  The earth around you seems to shudder, dust rising from the various parts of the crack as it shivers in response, and you gape down at it for a moment before grabbing Madeline’s hand.  With a yank she is at your side--and in the nick of time.

The ground is splitting open, and not just the area beneath your feet--everywhere you look, the asphalt, the grass, even the  _ houses _ are pulling themselves apart.  It was like a giant monster was snaking its way under the town, uprooting every living and non-living thing it passed.  People are running out of their homes and into the streets in a panic--you’ve never  _ seen  _ so many townspeople--but then they are disappearing, and  _ not  _ because they were falling through the massive fissures that keep erupting all around.  The people were simply vanishing, existing in one moment, then gone in the next, and you clutch Madeline to your side, determined not to lose her as you start to yell.  

“PENNYWISE!  STOP THIS!”

Madeline is screaming, too, the terror rattling through her small frame, and so your pleading yell becomes a scream.  “ _ Please!  What did I do?  I’m sorry! I’M SORRY _ !”  But neither stops, the noise or the chaos, and in your panic, you start to sob.  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I left! I won’t--I won’t leave again! I promise!”

And then...

_ Silence _ .

As your hair settles around your shoulders and the ringing in your ears dissipates, you look around yourself again.   _ And it’s incredible. _

You are surrounded by parts of Derry.  Everything from stretches of street to rows of houses are suspended in the night sky around you, with some chunks of land leaning or rising straight up like capsizing ships.  It reminds you of one of the clown’s illusions, the obstacle course floating over an abyss, except  _ this _ is a hundred times more terrible, a disaster on a massive scale.  You wonder if maybe only you can see it, but the wide-eyed way Madeline is looking around herself suggests otherwise.

And there are still no townspeople in sight.

“What's going on?” Madeline whispers.

“I'm not sure,” you respond, trying to keep your voice calm.  “But it won't stay this way. I'm sure of it.”  _ It's just an asshole of a god throwing a tantrum. _

But you immediately regret that fear-fueled taunt when something else happens: a large clock drops out of the sky, only stopping its descent several feet above your heads.  Easily as tall as Madeline, it’s like the Mad Hatter’s version of a clock, the numbers presented in such an outlandish script, they are almost unreadable. The hands are just as exaggerated, and the ticking of the second hand would be comically loud if you weren’t distracted by the feeling of dread creeping slowly up your spine.

_ Especially  _ when a horizontal flip clock appears in the the thing’s middle, cheekily disrupting the clockface’s baroque design with its modernness.  Confused, you stare at it a moment. Then with a rapid flourish, it sets its countdown to forty-eight hours.

Forty-eight hours?  But why…?

And then it dawns on you.

Forty-eight hours to find a target.  Forty-eight hours to woo them, to get them to the sewers even though the sewers could now be  _ anywhere _ , floating slowly over your head or sinking miles below your feet.  You look down at the hand still holding Madeline’s… and you start to shake.

There is no one around but yourselves.

Pennywise has given you forty-eight hours to find a victim in a ruined nightmare of a world, a world where there is only one option, and it's a horrible one.  And you know Pennywise so well he didn't even have to tell you that he had upped the stakes, promising  _ not  _ to leave you wanting if you failed, but to  _ kill _ you, and likely in the worst way he could think.  And why should you be surprised? It was  _ your  _ bargain, after all.  The one you had so selfishly made in a moment of weakness, when you were certain that  _ nothing _ , not even selling your soul, could be worse than the deadening, the feeling of  _ not feeling at all. _

You could have laughed, could have fallen onto the ground in a heap of despair--but you don’t.  Even though your hand is still shaking, you look down at the girl. You flash her the most confident smile you can muster.  “There’s a way out of here. I know it. There’s a way out, and we will find it, I promise.”

And it’s a promise you actually mean.  There was no question about it, no doubt in your mind.  You would die the most horrible death before exchanging your life for hers.

And besides, you think with a sting of black humor, you have already  _ slept  _ with Death.  How bad could the real thing be?

“So this is real?” Madeline asks, her voice a little stronger now.

“It is,” you reply.  “It’s real.”

_ As real as you and me. _

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, I'm back, and sooner than I had thought/said I would be, but I actually had a lot of fun writing this chapter; it wasn't as much as a brain-numbing slog like the other ones have been. It was uploaded quickly because I was excited, so I'll probably make a few grammatical edits here and there over the next few days (which, sorry about that.. I know it can be annoying, seeing notifications and not an actual update). Anyways, I really hope you liked this one! I'd love to hear your thoughts. <3


End file.
